


Questions

by Fandom_Trash224



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Gen, Swear Jars, Time Travel, this qualifies for that tag bc i say so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23371444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandom_Trash224/pseuds/Fandom_Trash224
Summary: The original Teen Titans find themselves flung back into the past, and they've met their younger selves. Weird thing is, none of them seem to remember it.Oh well, there's more pressing matters to attend to, like the fact that Nightwing just dropped an F-Bomb in front of a bunch of kids.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Teen Titans
Comments: 5
Kudos: 179





	Questions

**Author's Note:**

> i originally wrote this after reading a bunch of the OG teen titans comics and having a lot of feelings. apologies if it seems a bit ooc, it's been a hot minute since i've written any of these characters!

Dick Grayson, age 12, was staring in absolute shock and horror at Nightwing, his future self. Really, most of the (young, oh so young) Teen Titans were, the older versions of themselves not even phased in the slightest. If anything, a couple of them were trying to hold back laughter at the reactions of their younger selves.

“What?” Nightwing asked, arching an eyebrow under his domino, “What did I say?”

“You just dropped an F-Bomb!” Younger Dick (Still-Robin Dick) said, throwing his hands up in the air as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “You dropped an F-Bomb in our _base_! In front of us kids!”

“Oh. Whoops.”

“ _Whoops_?! Now I _know_ you can’t be me! I’d _never_ drop an F-Bomb! _Speedy_ might–”

“Hey!”

“But never me!”

“Listen kiddo,” Roy, No-Longer-Speedy Roy, stepped forward with a placating hand gesture, “Things change. We’re all adults now–”

“Even if some of us don’t always act like it…” Donna chimed in.

“We’ve all done our fair share of swearing. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where some of us have swear jars at the various team bases.”

“Like the one we have with Ollie?” Speedy asked quietly, cautiously. He still hadn’t quite put away his bow, still nocked with an arrow. Roy stiffened, but didn’t otherwise react negatively. Not while the kids were there.

“Yeah,” He said, his voice a bit more dry than it had been before, “Like with him.”

“Shouldn’t we be more worried about that fact that we’re currently talking to our future selves,” Aqualad asked, earning a supportive nod from his older self, “Especially since none of them– Us? Seem to remember it?”

“We’ll get to that in a sec, Garth,” Younger Wally assured, “But first, I gotta know: How cool is the future?”

“We can’t ask questions about the future!” Wondergirl berated her teammate, “It could destroy it! Although, I am wondering: Do we ever get a boyfriend?”

Okay, this was going from bad to worse _way_ too quickly. Nightwing exchanged a serious look with his younger self (an action that made his sentimental heart ache) and they stepped away from the others, who were trying to keep the peace amongst themselves with varying degrees of success. They accessed the main computer, Nightwing easily bypassing Bruce’s security as Robin watched with wide eyes. Dick realized it’d be about a year before he could do that, probably.

“Alright, sent the signal to the Batcave,” Nightwing said, “Hopefully we can get things under control before the timeline gets thoroughly… Messed up.”

“You were gonna drop another F-Bomb, weren’t you?”

“Habit. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Robin said quietly, adding with a whisper, “Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I swear too. I don’t even put money in the jar. Of course, nobody’s around, usually, but still, I do it.”

Dick knew that. He really had be swearing since he was nine, mostly to make the kids that came to the circus laugh and think he was cool and mature, but he toned it down after becoming Robin. He was a role-model, a hero, and he had taken it _very_ seriously. As he got older, though, well, it was much more cathartic to drop a nasty string of curses after stubbing his toe than saying something like “Holy Wooden Tables, that sure did hurt! Golly gee gosh!”.

“So…” Robin began, twisting around in one of the other rolling chairs, “You really don’t remember coming to the past?”

“Nope,” Nightwing replied, fiddling with the battery pack for his escrima sticks, “Probably one of those time masters or whatever wiped our memories of it. Or, _your_ memories, I guess. God, I hate time travel.”

“So, I could ask you questions? And it wouldn’t disrupt the time-stream?”

Nightwing blinked. That was a fair point. He could literally say anything to his younger self, _anything_ , and it would be okay. He used to have a whole list of things he wanted to say, but at that moment, he couldn’t think of any of them.

“Yeah,” Nightwing said after swallowing nothing, “I guess you could. Ask away, boy wonder.”

“The Titans. I know we– You were working together when you got pulled to the past, but… Do the Teen Titans–”

“Split up?” Nightwing finished, and Robin, brave, lonely Robin, nodded. Nightwing sighed. “Yeah, we… We do. Sorta. The original team splits up, most of us to go on our paths, find our own way. We keep in touch, though. Sorta. It’s been hectic.”

“Oh.” Robin’s voice was quiet, and Dick understood why. For a long time, aside from Batman (and even then, rarely him), he really felt like he only had the Titans. Sure, he had friends at school, but none of them knew about Robin, about being a hero, and the Teen Titans, well… They knew Robin _and_ Dick Grayson, not just one or the other. 

Hearing that he’s gonna lose that… It would’ve devastated him, and it wasn’t even the worst thing that was going to happen to him.

“Do we still work with Bruce?” Robin finally asked, his voice stronger, determined to get through all the questions in his head. Nightwing let out a soft laugh.

“Sometimes. We mostly deal with our city, Blüdhaven–” Nightwing barely held back a laugh when Robin made a face. “Hey! It’s not _that_ bad. Better than Hub City.”

“Yeah, I guess… But, why did we leave Gotham? Why did we leave Batman and Robin and become Nightwing?”

“That’s… Complicated.”

“Then make it not be.”

Nightwing sat back in his chair and sighed. He wasn’t sure he _could_ uncomplicate it, even years later, but he had to try. For Robin. For the young boy he used to be.

“We… Bruce tried, _is_ trying, his best to be our parent _and_ Batman, but he’s not very good at it. Half the time he’s distant, half the time he’s smothering us, and it only got worse as we got older. We had to get away, learn to be our _own_ person, our own hero. _Without_ Batman.”

“And without the Titans?”

“I… Yeah,” Nightwing said quietly, the half-lie tasted bitter on his tongue, “And without the Titans.”

“… We didn’t want to split up, did we?”

“Yes. No. Both? We– We knew we had to. We were all getting older, we couldn’t _be_ the Teen Titans anymore, but at the same time…”

“Yeah.” Robin said quietly. “I get it.”

In that moment, more than anything, Dick wanted to look his younger self in the eye and tell him that it was going to suck. That the Rogues and The Antithesis wasn’t the only major problems he was going to come across, that sometimes, even in a room full of people who loved him, he was going to feel so, _so_ alone. He wanted to tell him about Jason and Tim and the new Titans. He wanted to tell him about how life was going to throw everything it had at him until it got hard to even get out of bed sometimes, but that he had to keep going, because people _depend_ on him, hero and civilian alike. 

But he didn’t. He didn’t have to. Dick knew that Robin knew all that already. He had always known, in some small way. It didn’t make it any easier to face, though.

“Hey bird-brains!” Older Roy’s voice cut through the heavy atmosphere, “Batman’s here! Says he and Rip Hunter are gonna help us get home, c’mon!”

Nightwing and Robin looked at each other, and they both smiled in understanding.

“Make sure you pay the swear jar before you leave.” Robin said, getting up to rejoin the others, and Nightwing couldn’t help but laugh, even as he fished the five-dollar bill out of his hidden pocket.

**Author's Note:**

> cross-posted from my DC sideblog!
> 
> gothamhell.tumblr.com
> 
> my main is fandom-trash224.tumblr.com


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